Fireworks Finish, but No Champion Yet

ENLARGE

The St. Louis Cardinals bench erupted after David Freese hit a walk-off home run during the 11th inning.
AP

By

Matthew Futterman

Updated Oct. 28, 2011 9:04 a.m. ET

ST. LOUIS—Yes, it's corny, but it really was one of those games that grandparents will be telling their grandchildren about decades from now, a game that had people who had been watching baseball for three-quarters of a century saying they couldn't believe what they had just seen.

In short, the St. Louis Cardinals would not die. Two runs down and one strike from the end in both the ninth and 10th innings, the Cardinals staged two of the most stunning comebacks in baseball history and set up David Freese's dramatic, game-winning, walk-off home run in the bottom of the 11th inning to defeat the Texas Rangers 10-9.

"I felt like I was part of a circus out there bouncing balls off the top of my hat a little bit," said Freese, the hometown hero who hails from Wildwood, Mo., just 30 miles west of here. "I just wanted an opportunity."

ENLARGE

St. Louis Cardinals' David Freese hit the game winning home run.
Reuters

The win knotted the best-of-seven series at 3-3 and set up the first Game 7 in a World Series since 2002. Matt Harrison will start for the Rangers, and he will likely face veteran Chris Carpenter, who would be pitching on three days' rest for the Cardinals.

But it's hard to believe that anything that will take place Friday will top the series of wild, game-saving hits and clutch home runs that unfolded over four hours and 33 minutes of baseball Thursday night at Busch Stadium beneath the city's iconic arch.

"I have been watching baseball for 70 years and I can't remember ever seeing a game like this," said a nearly speechless Commissioner Bud Selig when it was over. "Only baseball could deliver something like this."

It's true. There was no clock that was running down, nothing that could stand in the way of this freakishly gritty Cardinals team but a final 27th out, and then a 30th one.

"This is better than the three home runs I hit the other day," said Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols whose double began the ninth-inning rally. "This is what baseball is all about."

It was a wild game filled with errors, misplays, clutch home runs, and emptying bullpens even before the real madness began in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Rangers could practically taste their first World Series championship, and they had their lights-out closer Neftali Feliz on the mound. But then Freese's two-out, two-strike triple blasted off the right field fence to score Pujols and Lance Berkman to tie the game. Freese somehow caught up with Feliz's 98-mile per hour fastball, sent it over the head of Nelson Cruz and gave the Cardinals life.

"When it was hit, I thought I had a shot," Cruz said. "Then it kinda took off."

That it did, but it was only the start. The Rangers' Josh Hamilton, suddenly dangerous after getting just three hits in the first five games, smashed a two-run home run in the top of the tenth inning.

It should have held. It didn't, not with Rangers manager Ron Washington turning to journeyman Darren Oliver to close his World Series.

A Daniel Descalso single. A bloop to short left off the bat of Jon Jay. A run-producing grounder to third from Ryan Theriot. Then Berkman, down to his last strike, lining a single off yet another reliever, Scott Feldman, to score Jay and rock Busch Stadium once again.

"You know, it's not that easy to win a world championship, as we found out tonight," said Washington. "They fought tonight, they came back and they won the ballgame."

Hamilton sat in the training room asking everyone he saw, "Y'all ever seen anything like this? I haven't. You stay in the game long enough, you're going to experience some things. And that was an experience tonight."

Matt Holliday, who injured his finger and had to leave the game in the sixth inning, said he spent the final minutes moving from the clubhouse to the dugout to the video room. "I was just looking for a lucky spot," he said. "This was just a ridiculous game. Good, bad, this and that. It had everything."

The Rangers jumped to an early lead when Hamilton drove in Ian Kinsler with a single to right in the first. But Berkman crushed a two-out, two-run, opposite-field homer in the bottom of the inning.

That lead didn't last long either as Kinsler smacked a run-scoring double to left in the second. In the fourth, the Rangers got the benefit of some ugly fielding, as Furcal ran into Holliday on Cruz's fly to short left, and Cruz would later score on a Mike Napoli single to right.

Then it was the Rangers's turn to get sloppy, as Michael Young booted Berkman's lead-off grounder to first. A walk later, Holliday slid hard and high and took out Elvis Andrus as he tried to turn a double play. Berkman would end up on third and score on Yadier Molina's grounder.

In the fifth, more ugliness. Freese dropped Hamilton's pop-up, and Young drove him home with a double to the gap in left center. Not to be outdone, Young would fumble another grounder in the sixth and Alexi Ogando would walk home a run.

ENLARGE

Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers, far left, celebrated in the dugout after hitting a two-run home run in the 10th inning.
Getty Images

With the score tied at four in the seventh, the Rangers appeared to pull away, Adrian Beltre and Cruz crushed back-to-back home runs to start the seventh inning to give the Rangers a 6-4 lead. Beltre blasted a 1-0 fastball over the fence in right-center field. Then Cruz stepped in and crushed a hanging breaking ball into the third deck down the left-field line.

With two outs and Derek Holland on second, Kinsler drove a single to center to give the Rangers a three-run cushion that almost looked safe.

Not even close. Allen Craig cut the lead to two in the eighth. Then the Cardinals loaded the bases, a warning shot of sorts. They weren't going to go quietly, even with Feliz, one of the game's elite closers, set to come on.

"This team just never gives up," owner Bill DeWitt said. "I never counted them out. It's the greatest baseball game I've ever seen."

Sitting in his suite, Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak, said he was stoic, even as the end was a strike away. "No matter what, until we get our last strike, we do not quit."

No, they don't. They were 10-and-a-half-games out of the playoffs in August but stormed back and qualified on the last night of the season. Then they faced down Roy Halladay, the game's best pitcher, on the road in Game 5 of the Division Series.

Now this.

"The dugout was alive, even when we were behind," manager Tony La Russa said. "Sometimes it works."

And yet, there is still one more game to play. Everyone has to come back here Friday afternoon, start all the routines all over, and give glory a shot one last time.

"Part of me is frustrated, part of me says that's the best game I've ever been a part of," said Rangers outfielder David Murphy. "I don't exactly know what to say, or how to describe that game—but it didn't end the way we wanted. Tomorrow's Game 7. This one's over, and we don't have any time to think about it or dwell on it."

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